J-1 is the fault of the home countries requiring the US to put these restrictions on foreign students in exchange for allowing American students to go to those countries at all. They don't want their best students going to the US and staying there, so they make a visa treaty (or whatever term that agreement would have, if not "treaty") that requires them to come back for some set period where they can't apply for another visa in the US, to give them time to "share their knowledge and experience with their countrymen", as it was worded in DHS documents.

We need a new system that gives more student visas to every country, eliminating all the current types of visas, and implementing a new one that applies everywhere that makes it MUCH easier for changes in visa type, residency status, and green card applications.